Dear reader

I realized today that by the end of July, I will have been at this blogging thing for two years already.  What started out as something I did for me, as a way of recording the meaningful and interesting experiences of my life and making sense of my thoughts and feelings, has blossomed into something bigger and more rewarding than I ever imagined.  I watch visitors arrive on Pocketfuls, both from places where loved ones live and from places where I'm sure I don't know anyone at all, and it amazes and inspires me that people other than my family members and close friends find what I've shared worth reading.  While I don't know who many of you are, I am really glad for your company here, and for whatever little connection we share that drew you to my site.

In my day-to-day life, I am really more of a private person by nature.  I may not show it outwardly, but I am often nervous in large groups of people, and it takes me a while to feel comfortable enough with someone to share my true thoughts and feelings.  The safe walls of the spaces I know well and the familiar faces of the people I am closest to are usually the only ones who see what I'm experiencing inside.  Over the past two years,  my notebooks and my computer have also become a comfortable place to share who I really am, and through having the courage to publish my stories, I have grown both as a writer and as a person.  It's scary sometimes to write from your heart on a page that the whole world can read, but doing so has made me realize that the world is often a much smaller and much friendlier place than it sometimes seems.  Though we may be strangers, so many of us are connected to one another through our common human emotions and experiences.

I can't tell you how much it has meant to me to read or to hear your kind comments about how my blog speaks to you in some way.  Whether you've tried one of my recipes and enjoyed it, or could relate to one of my frustrating or funny adventures as a parent, or were moved or inspired by my reflections on life, love, grief, or beauty, it has made me so happy to be able to reach you, and to know that there are so many others out there who find meaning and significance in the same things I do.  I am grateful for each and every one of you who comes to share this space and these stories.

You may notice today that my web address has changed; yesterday I switched over to my own domain (www.pocketfuls.ca) to make this space I love more personal and to make it easier for others to find me.  (Thanks to fellow blogger Summer over at Running Chatter for the technical how-to tips!)  I have also recently registered for my first blogger conference, to be held in Toronto in the fall, which I'm very excited about!  I'll continue sharing the people, moments, and ideas that are important to me for as long as writing them down continues to bring me joy, and I hope that more of you will share your personal voices in the comments section from now on -- I would love to know more about who you are and what really matters to you. 

I still have lots of pockets left to fill -- I hope you do, too!  Please do come again soon.

Simple summer supper: grilled tilapia and colourful salads

May and June always seem to be incredibly busy months for us.  With all of the extra, special activities that pop up for the boys at school in the last weeks of the academic year, the swim meets and track meets and races and triathlons they participate in, and the fifty tonnes of yard work that suddenly need to be done by Matt and I all at once in the spring, it seems like we are always running.  I love all of these things we do, but I think we're all also really looking forward to life moving at a somewhat slower pace over summer holidays, and having a chance to relax just a little more!

Thankfully, one thing that seems simple during this hectic time is being able to prepare colourful, healthy, delicious meals for our family in a short amount of time.  Warm weather calls for lighter, fresher fare, and all we need is a few pieces of flavourfully seasoned meat or fish to throw on the grill, plus the ingredients to whip up a couple of nutritious salads, and dinner is served!

We recently enjoyed this quick but very tasty meal of grilled tilapia, black bean salad, and spinach salad with mango and sweet red pepper.  The recipe for the seasoning mixture is based on one from Canadian Living's The Barbecue Collection cookbook, and the cooking instructions come from Matt, who has some pretty mad skills with the grill!

Grilled Tilapia

4 fresh tilapia fillets
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp black pepper
canola oil

Brush grill with canola oil, then preheat grill to medium heat.
Mix together paprika, sea salt, cumin, and pepper in a small bowl.  Sprinkle seasoning mixture over both sides of each tilapia fillet, then brush fillets with oil.
Place fish on grill.  Cook for 5 minutes on one side, then carefully flip fish fillets once and cook for another 7 minutes on the second side.
Squeeze fresh lime juice over fillets before serving.

The tilapia fillets paired with two summery salads make a beautiful dinner.  For the green salad, I simply tossed some baby spinach with some diced fresh mango and sweet red peppers, then added a simple vinaigrette made from freshly squeezed orange juice, white wine vinegar, olive oil, and a bit of dijon mustard, sea salt and pepper.  You can find the recipe for the black bean salad here.

Keeping supper simple when the weather is so lovely leaves more time to enjoy some less busy moments outdoors!  I hope you and your family are having a chance to enjoy the same this time of year.

Little green sprouts

Early on Mother's Day morning, Will presented me with the sweetest little clay flowerpot, one that he had very carefully fingerpainted with pretty little trees, a ladybug, the sun, and a lovely blue sky.  Inside the pot was a tiny pod of soil into which he had very delicately pushed two sunflower seeds with his finger earlier in the week.  When Will handed the pot to me, his whole face was lit up in a proud smile, and he was very excited about the fact that there was a tiny green shoot just starting to push through the soil where one of the seeds had sprouted.  It was really a wonderful little moment to share with my youngest boy.

In the week and a half that has passed since then, Will has taken a very active role in helping me care for the little sunflower seeds.  He often waters them before I have a chance to get to them in the morning, and he checks them regularly to see how they've grown.  He moves the little flowerpot around to different locations to make sure it is getting the best sun and to protect its delicate little sprouts from a certain cat who sometimes likes to eat plants.  He has chosen a perfect spot in our garden for me to plant the sprouts when they're ready, and asks me every day if I think it's time yet to let them out in the big wide world.  Will knows that all of his love and care for these little green plants are going to turn them into something beautiful; he tells me how lovely the flowers will be when they finally show their sunshiney faces and how happy they will make us all feel.

I really love those little sunflower sprouts in their precious pot and everything they represent to me.  Whenever I am having a moment where I'm being hard on myself, thinking there are many ways in which I could be a better mom, the two eager green shoots remind me that I'm growing something really special, too.  I think of Will so tenderly caring for those little seeds and it makes me smile and ease up on myself, knowing as a gardener that a beautiful boy, like a beautiful flower, is almost always the product of knowing love.

Swing

When I was little, there was a friendly old swingset in our backyard.  It waited patiently for the long northern winter season to pass each year so that it could once again provide a comfortable place for us children to play and laugh, and dream our big dreams under the warmth of a bright blue summer sky.  My brothers and I passed many happy hours there, pumping our legs wildly to swing higher and higher, pulling hard on the rope handles to hang our heads back so far they almost swept the ground, flinging our sandals off our tanned little feet high into the air.  We were young, and carefree, and giddy with the absolute freedom of summer and sunshine and life.  When I think back to those days on the swings, I still sometimes believe that I can fly....

***

The swingset beckoned to the boys tonight after dinner.  It was an absolutely beautiful evening, filled with the gentler rays of the sun, a light breeze in the trees, and the lovely sounds of birds chirping their last melodies of the day.  Noah and Will each chose their favourite swing, and in no time at all, they were flying through the air, laughing and calling greetings to each other as they passed back and forth, flinging their shoes off their feet towards the sky, revelling in the feeling of air rushing freely past their smiling faces and bare toes.

As I watched the boys' gleeful antics this evening in a backyard almost 800 kilometres from the one where my old swingset stood , I wondered what dreams Noah and Will were dreaming up there in the endless sky.  I marvelled at how swings still have the power to make me incredibly happy, even all these years later, though now for completely different reasons.  For as long as there are children in the world, I hope that there will always be swings, to give them a place to play and laugh and be carefree, and to let them believe, even for a little while, that they can fly....

Frosty fudge pops (dairy-free)

It's the first long weekend of summer already!  The beautiful weather forecast sounds just perfect for the outdoor adventures we have planned at our house over the next few days, and today I was thinking about what kind of cool, delicious treat we could all enjoy together on these warm, sunny afternoons.  The boys and I have had lots of fun in recent summers coming up with fruity homemade popsicles to share, and lately Noah and Will have been asking me if I could come up with a homemade version of a dairy-free fudgesicle.  I wanted something that would taste creamy and chocolately like the store-bought ones, but that would also have some good nutritional value and less refined sugar, so I set off on an internet search for inspiration.

When I came across this recipe for dairy-free chocolate pudding created by Angela Liddon of Oh She Glows, I knew right away that I could make the boys' fudgesicle wishes come true.  The pudding is made from avocado (yes, avocado!), a fruit that is high in fibre, omega-3 fatty acids, potassium, and vitamins and that makes a delightfully smooth and rich pudding base when it is pureed.  I made a few changes to Angela's recipe, poured the pudding into stainless steel popsicle molds, and a few hours later we had some oh-so-good (and better for you) frosty fudge pops!

Frosty fudge pops

3 medium-sized avocados, pitted and skin removed
1 cup almond milk
2/3 cup pure maple syrup
1 tbsp cashew butter (you could also use peanut butter or almond butter)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp cocoa powder

Place all ingredients in a food processor.  Process until mixture is smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally to make sure all ingredients are well mixed in.

Spoon pudding into popsicle molds and add a popsicle stick to each one.  Place molds in freezer for several hours, or until fudge pops are frozen solid.

I am usually not a mom who plays "sneaky chef" with her kids;  despite the fact that Noah and Will are both quite picky eaters, I continue to put a wide variety of healthy foods in front of them in plain sight daily in the hopes that eventually, they will decide to eat something new.  But I have to admit that I did not tell them what the secret ingredient is in these fudge pops.  They are so opposed to avocados in their green form that I knew they would refuse to try these healthier pops if they knew.  After trying the pudding, though, both boys gave it an enthusiastic "thumbs up" (and I thought it was the best chocolate pudding I've ever tasted!).  My secret is safe until they read this blog post....

I hope you all have a wonderful long weekend!

Lost and found

Noah came home from school one day last week without the clothes he was wearing when he left that morning.  (Don't worry -- it's not quite as bad as it sounds.)  He had changed into gym clothes mid-way through the day to train for track and field, left his regular clothes somewhere outside his locked portable classroom, and completely forgot about them because he never changed back into his regular clothes afterwards.  Luckily, someone had brought them inside and he was able to retrieve them the next day, but if you add these items to the goggles and swim fins he left behind at the pool yet again after practices in recent weeks, it seems that my oh-so-intelligent but distracted boy is on another one of his losing streaks.

I have written before about the mountains of stuff Noah has lost, either temporarily or permanently, over the past few years, and you would think that by this point I would be losing my mind with frustration.  But while Noah was really upset and worried when he realized he had forgotten his jeans and favourite t-shirt on an outside step in the school yard, I was thinking of all of the other incredible things he's done with his beautiful mind lately, and I found it easy to forgive him for not focusing on the little details.

A few weeks ago, Noah was one of several students chosen from the grade 5 classes at his school to write the Gauss Math Contest. (I guess all of that math he's been teaching Maggie has been useful to him, too!)  When he came home after writing the contest, he told me that it seemed to go pretty well, and then the subject didn't come up again for awhile.  Last Friday, Noah came out of school at the end of the day with a big grin on his face and very modestly said, "Mom, I came first in the math contest."  I congratulated him excitedly, and told him how wonderful I thought his accomplishment was, really impressed that he had placed first out of all of the bright grade 5 students in his school. 

It wasn't until dinnertime, when we were sharing with Matt the details of our day, that Noah clarified he had come first out of all of the bright grade 5 students in the entire school board!  Now, I don't want to seem like a mom who brags endlessly about her brainy boys, but I was filled with such a sense of awe at this discovery that I can't help but share it.  I just take one look at Noah, with his intelligence, his determination, his commitment, and his kind, kind heart, and I'm moved to tears both by who he is and what he is capable of becoming.

It is not simply Noah's math skills that have had this effect on me; it's the fact that lately, everything he puts himself into results in something wonderful that makes my heart swell with pride and love.  He has shown such dedication to his swimming and running in recent months -- we cheered him on wildly as he tirelessly completed a difficult 200 length, two hour swim one recent Saturday morning, and raced to a second place finish in the 1500m at this week's school track meet.  He's demonstrated a great loyalty to his friends and a desire to support them during difficult times, as is evident in the way he just enthusiastically signed up for a hockey skills development camp fundraiser to help his close friend's dad, when he's never played organized hockey a day in his life.  He has shown a capacity to feel and write beautifully from his heart, with this sweet poem he wrote for me for Mother's Day:

I love that he thinks I'm an internet sensation!  :)

How could I not fall more and more in love with this wonderful boy as each breathtaking new leaf on the tree of his life unfolds before me?

I don't know what other things Noah will lose in the coming months and years; I'm pretty sure I won't be able to keep track of them all.  But Noah makes up for it a million times over in the joy he lets me find every day in knowing him and being his mom.

Rick vs. Chordoma

Today I want to share a story of a wonderful man and his family who are going through a difficult time.  Rick, the father of one of Noah's best friends, was diagnosed last fall with Chordoma, a rare and difficult to treat form of cancer that occurs in the bones of the skull and spine.  He has already undergone brain surgery to remove part of the tumour, and is currently in the middle of radiation treatments, which involve driving to and from London (over an hour away) every day from Monday to Friday each week.  While I can't know for sure what worries and fears and struggles Rick, his wife Carole, their daughter Jess and their son Christian must face every day in this journey they're taking together, I imagine it must at times seem overwhelming, terrifying, exhausting, and unfair. 

The strength and togetherness of the Gehl family in the face of such stress is inspiring, to say the least.  Rick, who has always been a warm, kind, and hilariously funny man, still often shows up in the school yard to meet his children at the end of the day, and the smile on his face does not reveal even a hint of the war he's waging inside his body.  He is facing his illness with optimism, telling jokes and speaking candidly about what he's going through, and showing the world just how far a positive attitude will take you.  As is evident in their daily lives and in the heartfelt messages they've written for Rick on the website the family has set up to share their story, Carole and Jess and Christian are with Rick every step of the way; they are lifting each other up with their love when the weight of what they're facing falls heavily on any of them.

Rick, Carole, Jess and Christian are surrounded by a wonderfully supportive network of extended family and friends who are helping them in various ways during this time.  A one day hockey camp for kids aged 6 to 12 has been organized as a fundraiser, and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to assist Rick with the financial burdens of his battle against cancer.  If you know children in the K-W area who would be interested in a fun day of hockey skill development on the ice, games in the gym, and lifeguard supervised swimming, please consider signing them up for this event.  (You can find more information about both the camp and Rick's story here.)  If you live outside of K-W or do not know any young hockey fans, then please lend your support for Rick and his family in the form of positive thoughts or prayers.  Both Rick and Carole have said how difficult it is for them to accept others' help, even though they are so very grateful for all of the kindness being shown to them.  Knowing how much they have given to others just by being themselves makes me certain that there is no one more deserving of all the support we can give.

Our hearts and thoughts are with you and your family every day, Rick.  Keep up the good fight with hope and courage, knowing that there are many, many people in your corner.